


How rare and beautiful

by rillaelilz



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Durincest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 15:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4965325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillaelilz/pseuds/rillaelilz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fíli, look! Mountains!”</p>
<p>If Fíli really needs to pinpoint the very moment he knows this endless car ride is worth every excruciatingly long second of it, it’s this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How rare and beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tumblr prompt "FiKi + Driving for many hours through mountains" (here's the [original post](http://rillils.tumblr.com/post/130501716282/filikili-and-9-driving-for-many-hours-through), here's the [prompts post](http://rillils.tumblr.com/post/125097233872/30-multipurpose-prompts-open-to-interpretation)). Title unashamedly stolen from [Saturn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fft3i2gaE). I just... thought I might as well post it here, too XD

07:41 PM

“Fíli, look!  _Mountains!_ ”

If Fíli really needs to pinpoint the very moment he knows this endless car ride is worth every excruciatingly long second of it, it’s this one. This moment with their too-big bodies encased on the backseat, crossed legs brushing casually against each other, breakfast food for dinner - the service area’s croissants are pretty stale, but at least the coffee is good - and Kíli’s forefinger pointing out the smudged window, his entire face lit up by a neon-bright smile.

“Do you know what’s beyond those mountains?”

There he goes. Crinkled nose, pastry flakes on his chin, a skyful of stars shining in his eyes; easily the most beautiful thing Fíli has ever seen or cared to look at. He himself grins - it may look indulgent on the outside, but deep in its core, behind teeth and tongue and down down  _down_  to the middle of his chest, it only tastes like contentment.

“ _Home._ ” He answers. Kíli’s smile goes from  _neon_  to downright  _July sun_.

 

08:12 PM

“I want to see this, I want to be wide awake when we leave the mountains behind and it comes into view,” Kíli’s babbling on, hands flailing about, and he looks like a kid, ready to race his friends to that tree or that other fence any second now. Somehow  _Cute_  feels like the only appropriate word for it - for the Christmas morning-excited glint in his eyes and the ruffled hair falling around his face like a pup’s floppy ears.

“It’s gonna take a few hours,” Fíli warns him patiently, gaze fixed on the sliver of road rolling out before them, on the guardrail’s stretching shadows as the sun splashes in a pool of pink and lilac behind the mountaintops.

Kíli snorts and turns on the radio, settling back against the passenger seat with a confident grin.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he hums.

 

08:53 PM

Years of practice and nonjudgmental smiles didn’t prepare Fíli for this. Slamming his hands flat on his ears has never felt more alluring before -  _if he only could_ , but alas the wheel is keeping them pretty busy.

It’s not even because of the song per se,  _no_ , it’s- it’s more a matter of Kíli’s angelic voice  _squawking_  along with  _so much_  enthusiasm, it’s breathtaking.

“ _… it was more than any LAWS aLLOOooww-_ ”

Aah, suaver than a nightingale.

“Mahal give me strength.”

“ _BABY BAABYY-_ ”

“All right, that’s it,” Fíli cuts him off, ignoring the shudder that’s still running down his spine. “One more Celine Dion song and I swear I’ll throw this radio off the next cliff.”

Kíli pouts; and for some reason, c _ute_  still seems like a valid definition for that.

“You spoilsport.”

Maybe it just comes naturally to him.

 

09:15 PM

“One, one two, one two three, one two three four-”

“ _What_  are you doing?”

“Seeing how fast I can get bored.”

“I’ll give you until ten.”

 

09:22 PM

“Fee,  _I’m bored_.”

He sounds so miserable, poor thing, the small smile appears on Fíli’s lips without him even processing it.

“How would you feel about a snack?” He prompts mercifully. “There’s some chocolate in my bag,” he adds with a wink, and knows that he won’t have to say it twice.

While Kíli rummages in his backpack – it somehow ended up under the passenger’s seat, somewhere during the past five hours – Fíli twists his arm behind his seat, reaching for the bunched up blanket overflowing right off the edge of the backseat, and lets it fall on Kíli’s busy lap.

“You might need it later,” he grins, and if he stares ahead long enough he could convince himself that the highway is grinning back at him.

“I love you,” Kíli thanks him around his first morsel of chocolate, snapping the next stripe and bending sideways so he can let it slip between Fíli’s ready lips.

“ _Yesh_ , you do,” is the muffled, smug reply he gets a moment later.

They manage to finish the entire chocolate bar between the two of them, in a less than advisable amount of time, giggling like overexcited kindergartners in between Kíli’s yawns. Fíli’s fingers get a bit sticky around the steering wheel, but he doesn’t mind.

 

11:42 PM

It’s one crazy minute, the one he spends throwing glances at Kíli, taking in that knee bent against the dashboard, the foot lost in the shadows beneath, his parted lips and head lulling gently against the grey headrest - and seeing with immense clarity that this,  _this_  particular picture that time, space and circumstances drew for him, is all he has, and all he will ever need.

It’s, quite simply, his whole world on a car seat.

 

11:43 PM

Maybe it’s two crazy minutes.

 

11:47 PM

Maybe it’s a whole crazy lifetime.

 

01:29 AM

Everything becomes quite confusing to Kíli as he dozes off and on; things lose their contours, time feels like one slow, never-ending minute. Fíli seems to be the only clear pivot in this sleepy haze whenever Kíli opens his eyes.

It’s both reassuring and electrifying, Fíli’s presence by his side. It’s like when you wake up to hot coffee in your favourite mug and a bakery-warm doughnut by it.

It’s cosy and snug like breakfast on early mornings and sweaters on a cold dawn.

It’s rich and fulfilling like lunch on a sunny day, the very definition of  _plenty_  on your plate, that sated feeling in your tummy.

Kíli wishes he could find the words to say it.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he mutters instead, snuggling up to his seat, and his eyes barely catch the blur of Fíli’s fingers turning the radio’s volume down, before his eyelids drop over them as heavy as curtains.

“What secret?”

It’s a wonder how voices seem to be smiling, Kíli marvels drowsily.

“It’s only ever home when you’re coming back with me,” he nods into his blanket, the hem tucked so high it tickles his nose and leaves his legs bare.

He only hears a small puff of breath; then it’s the low buzzing of the radio melting into weird dreams of doughnuts and sandwiches and minty kisses. He can almost taste the lingering toothpaste on his tongue, Kíli thinks, but just then everything fades to a soothing black.

 

03:18 AM

Kíli’s head is peering halfway through the open window, his hair in a flutter about him, baring the sweeter side of his neck; and this could be just another side effect of driving through mountains – akin to the corked-like ears and the vague dizziness and that tingle in the pit of your stomach that could be either hunger or the wild call of adventure – but when Fíli glances at him next, he finds himself mesmerized.

See, there’s always something peculiar about mountain roads; in their unique, meandering quality; in the way they skirt the mountainside, curving around every slope and breaching stone with tunnels; in the musky scent that rises from the miniature forests sprouting down below; in the tawny light of a sunset shaded on the treetops as if a brush put it there.

Night takes it all away, morphing golden shapes into a quiet mass of shadows.

It’s just an infinite sky, city lights twinkling in the distance like small groups of stars hanging out at the bar, huddled together just a step away from the horizon; it’s the surreal space of a few hours, but it feels like it’s just the two of them, suspended in a world only a few sparse cars can break into, for no more than a handful of seconds.

_It’s just them_ , doused in a cool, starry pool of comfortable silence. It’s the tunnels’ orange lights flickering on Fíli’s forearms and Kíli’s lean thighs, and the wind sweeping through his hair, his silhouette a stark wall of greys and blues and browns against the pure darkness of the night sky.

He’s like a movie sequence, and every side glance, every careless zoom-in leaves Fíli breathless.

He’s like photography, like the lens are magnifying the littlest details about him and pinning them against the universe’s canvas for comparison, saving them for greatness and eternity.

He’s like a comic, inked mane and halftones on the gentle line of his neck, behind the shell of his ear – and it doesn’t matter if the next panel makes him a distant god, or has the Milky Way roll out of his hair as they glide down the highway and the breeze brushes his locks free of planets and satellites, Fíli will kiss every last star until he’s reaching the constellations blossoming on Kíli’s nape and nuzzling the stardust sprinkled on his sideburns; he’ll taste Sirius and the Pole Star on his lips and maybe find that they’re just sweet sugar cubes, just like Kíli told him when he was six.

For now, he contents himself with a grin and a pleasant shiver seizing his spine from top to base.

“Oh- are you cold? Do you want me to close the window-?”

In his reverie, he obviously hadn’t taken account of Kíli’s worried face, the still drowsy eyes unexpectedly sharp in the dim light.

“No, I’m fine.”

Kíli never listens, and Fíli is perfectly aware of that, so Kíli rolling the window shut and stretching his blanket across the gearstick to drape it over Fíli’s lap isn’t exactly  _surprising_.

“It’s quite chilly tonight,” the young man nods in his knowledgeable tone, then holds up their thermos and Fíli can hear the coffee slosh seductively inside it, like a mermaid waiting to grab hold of his sleep-deprived soul.

“Need a fix?” Kíli teases, all wiggling eyebrows and cheeky - albeit tired - grin, and Fíli reckons that he will never ever love him more than he does in this split second.

“ _You’re reading my mind_.”

 

04:35 AM

The world is so much fuzzier and dusky than he remembered when Kíli slowly, just barely comes to, but Fíli’s still there - a low hum about his lips, fingers curled around the steering wheel, one lonely braid escaping the bun and tickling his nape.

“Fee, you tired?” he mumbles, stammering a bit in his drowsy state. “Wanna switch?”

Fíli rests a reassuring hand on his knee, just an inch past the gear stick, his lips curved in a smile as warm as his skin feels even through the denim.

“I’m fine, baby, go back to sleep.”

And it’s not like Kíli really wants to, but he does; he slips a hand under Fíli’s palm, and his eyes slide closed again.

 

06:02 AM

The moment the car is steered into the parking lot and the soft rumble of the engine subsides into silence, an exhausted sigh leaves Fíli’s lips. He rubs his eyes, pushing his seat back so he can let his legs stretch a bit, and then pauses to take in the sight splayed a bunch of miles below them – where the hills blend into plains and small groves give way to cropped fields, and the new sunrise gently washes over the town settled in the middle of the valley.

He smiles to himself, pure satisfaction prickling his insides.

He can feel his eyes beg him to scrape a few hours of sleep together, and his stomach grumble for food, but he pushes all of that aside for a minute longer.

Sure, the stunning landscape calls for admiration, and the three of them (their good old banger included) need some fuel and respite before they can bring this journey to an end; but there is one little, more pressing matter at hand, and it can’t wait.

 

06:04 AM

Kíli tastes just like he looks, sleepy and warm. And when his lips softly return the kiss, Fíli’s heart sings his victory.

He draws back just in time to see Kíli’s eyes blink open and his lips stretch in a lazy grin.

“ _’Morning_ ,” the younger purrs, idly shoving some of his frizzy bangs out of his eyes, and somehow he really does look like a kitten, fluffy and sated on milk and cuddles. He doesn’t even seem to mind his current slumped-on-a-car-seat state, although his neck must have suffered for it more than his fond smile shows.

Fíli almost loses himself in the urge to kiss it better; he opts for a little eskimo kiss in the end, nuzzling Kíli’s nose with his own, a thumb gently brushing his lover’s jawline while the remaining four fingers steal away in between Kíli’s neck and his pooled hair.

“Take a look out the window,” Fíli murmurs against his cheek.

The look in Kíli’s wide eyes, as they drink in Ered Luin’s rooftops snuggled up together, is truly the only reward he needs for ten hours of almost non-stop driving.

 

+

06:07 AM

Kíli’s laughter crashes over him, more contagious than the flu.

“We’re getting pancakes,” he declares as he plunges out of the car and sprints all the way to Fíli’s side. “And then I’m driving us home, where you will sleep for the next two days at least – I’m not taking no for an answer,” the boy adds, tugging Fíli to his feet and planting a quick kiss on his mouth.

“But first I gotta pee,” he also warns Fíli, hurriedly skipping out in the bathrooms’ general direction and leaving his boyfriend dumbfounded for a second.

“Don’t start breakfast without me!” He calls again after a dozen yards. That’s when Fíli actually doubles over with laughter.


End file.
